Browsing by Department "Art History"
Now showing items 1-20 of 260
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A personal treasure : the Baltimore-Helmarshausen Psalter (Walters Art Museum MS W. 10) and its originally-intended owner
(2017-05)Earlier scholarship on the Baltimore-Helmarshausen Psalter (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W. 10) focuses almost exclusively on the identity of the noblewoman depicted in the full-page owner portrait before the start ... -
A prolegomena to a new study of ornament : architecture as embodied ornament in the Great Mosque of Córdoba
(2020-05-08)This thesis argues for a new theory of ornament as embodied. The argument for a new theory of embodied ornament responds to and rejects canonical notions of ornament as an applied, decorative skin. Rather, it argues for ... -
Abdication in an artistic democracy : meaning in the work of Barnett Newman and Donald Judd, 1950-1970 (and thereafter)
(2006-12)This dissertation considers what reticent works of art demand of us, and what purpose their reticence serves. Selected episodes in the careers of Barnett Newman and Donald Judd support a broader discussion of interpretive ... -
Adventures on paper and in travesía : the School of Valparaíso visualizes America, 1965-1984
(2015-05)Since 1984 faculty at the School of Architecture and Design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) have experimented with the concept of the traveling studio. In contrast to the typical, one-off trip ... -
Agent for change : catalyzing the subject in Adrian Piper’s Catalysis VII
(2021-05-10)The subject of this thesis is American artist and philosopher Adrian Piper’s 1971 performance Catalysis VII, one of eight performances in her Catalysis series conducted between 1970 to 1971 in various public and semipublic ... -
Agent of touch and transformation : a pilgrimage token of Saint Symeon the Younger in the Menil collection
(2011-05)When considering early Byzantine pilgrimage tokens, questions of touch and tactility arise almost instantly. Tokens lack cords or mountings, and so touch is implicit in such objects. Even gazing at them was a form of ... -
Alexander VI as patron : the style and significance of the Borgia papal frescoes
(2015-08)In 1492, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia ascended the throne of St. Peter as Pope Alexander Sextus. Later that same year, Alexander commissioned Perugian artist Bernardino di Betto--more commonly referred to as Pinturicchio--to ... -
Allegories et symboles dans l'Hortus deliciarum by Gerard Cames
(Speculum, 1973) -
Altars and Empire : studies in Roman altars and divine kingship (c.300 B.C.- A.D. 96)
(2013-12)In the concluding remarks to her 1913 dissertation, Helen Bowerman notes that “[a]lthough the sacrificial altars [sic] form a group of comparatively unimportant monuments.” This study is an attempt to both refute Bowerman’s ... -
An ecstatic collapse : a re-thinking of Faig Ahmed's Carpet series
(2016-08)This thesis engages with the critical dialogue surrounding Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed’s series of sculptures titled the Carpet series. Offering up a re-thinking of the series, this thesis shapes a nuanced phenomenolog ... -
An emperor for a master : slaves in the palaces of Augustus and Nero
(2018-05)Traditionally, scholars portray the palaces of imperial Rome as spaces for interaction between the emperor and his elite guests while erasing the majority of the familia urbana that populated these sprawling structures: ... -
An empire of water and stone : the Acuecuexco Aqueduct Relief
(2019-05-13)In 1499, the eighth Aztec ruler, Ahuitzotl, completed one of his last great contributions to his empire’s capital: a new aqueduct. Although initially met with jubilation across Tenochtitlan, the aqueduct soon faltered, ... -
An intangible border : Sulla’s Pomerium and destabilization in republican Rome
(2019-05-21)In the waning years of the Roman Republic, amidst an atmosphere of distrust and unease, Roman dictator L. Cornelius Sulla enacted a series of proscriptions that infamously left the streets of Rome running with blood, ... -
Ananda Coomaraswamy's role in making a place for Indian art at the MFA Boston
(2023-04-21)Perhaps the most widely recognized historian of Indian art, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy is often assigned a foundational role in the development of Indian art history and the acceptance of Indian art into western fine arts ... -
Andy Warhol's cinema beyond the lens
(2013-05)This dissertation examines a small selection of the hundreds of films made by Andy Warhol and his collaborators between 1963 and 1968. Each chapter contextualizes a particular aspect of Warhol's filmmaking in terms of the ... -
Animate architecture at Kabah : terminal classic art and politics in the Puuc region of Yucatán, Mexico
(2016-01-22)This dissertation explores sociopolitical dynamics in the Puuc region during the Terminal Classic period (c. 750-1000 CE) through a multi-level examination of architectural sculpture. It begins with a broad look at the ... -
The architectural sculpture of Ivan Meštrović in relation to Adolf von Hildebrand's The problem of form in the fine arts
(2011-08)This thesis investigates the relationship between the architectural sculpture of Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović and late nineteenth-century aesthetic theory. Most scholarship on Meštrović emphasizes his Croatian heritage ... -
Architecture of the Islamic frontier : architectural sources and urbanism in the Aydinid principality (1304-1390)
(2018-05)The conquest of western Anatolia by the Turcoman peoples in the early fourteenth century engendered the largest building program in the region since late antiquity. Involved in this program were not only forms of religious ... -
Asserting authority : the canons' use of the Theophilus legend and Marian imagery at Notre-Dame in Paris
(2013-05)The north transept portal at Notre-Dame in Paris depicts the legend of Theophilus. This legend is about a church official who sells his soul to the devil but then repents and is granted salvation with the help of the Virgin. ... -
At the edge of the Maya world : power, politics, and identity in monuments from the Comitán Valley, Chiapas, Mexico
(2015-05)In the Comitán Valley of Chiapas, Mexico, several large Maya centers flourished in the Late Classic (600-900 CE) and Early Postclassic (900-1250 CE) periods. These centers left behind monumental architecture, elaborate ...
